People

Janne Fritt-Rasmussen

Dr. Janne Fritt-Rasmussen (JFR), environmental engineer, at Aarhus University, Department for Bioscience, Danish Centre for Environment and Energy (DCE), has several years of experience within Arctic research. JFR has participated in Arctic field trials involving in situ burning (Svalbard, Barents Sea) as well as field work in relation to oil spill contaminations on land (Greenland). JFR has also conducted a vast amount of laboratory ISB experiments, primarily as part of her PhD: ”In situ burning of Arctic marine oil spills. Ignitability of various oil types weathered at different ice conditions. A combined laboratory and field study.” JFR has published several papers/reports on the subject. In her current position JFR is part of the DCE consultancy to the Greenlandic authorities regarding environmental aspects of the oil exploitation in Greenland. This also includes environmental research.

Ali S. Rangwala

Ali S. Rangwala is an associate professor at the department of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) (2006 – present). He has a BS in Electrical Engineering, from the Government College of Engineering, Pune, India (2000), an MS in Fire Protection Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park (2002), and a PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of California, San Diego (2006).

Professor Rangwala’s research interests include, in-situ burning of oil and spread of oil slicks in channels deflagration of combustible dust clouds, ignition behavior of combustible dust layers. More details related to Rangwala’s work can be found at www.wpi.edu/~rangwala.

Grunde Jomaas

Grunde Jomaas is an associate professor in Civil Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark. He received a B.Sc. in Fire Protection Engineering from the University of Maryland (2001) and a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University (2008). Grunde is the coordinator of the In-Situ Burning team.

Laurens van Gelderen (Postdoc)

Laurens van Gelderen conducted his Ph.D. study as a part of the ISBoil project. He successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled "In-Situ Burning of Crude Oil on Water" on the 24th of March 2017 (see the Publications section for a full video of the defense) and will continue his work on the ISBoil project as a postdoctoral researcher. He holds a Master's Degree from the Free University (VU) / University of Amsterdam (UvA) in Chemistry - Molecular Design, Synthesis and Catalysis with a Societal track (2013). The Societal track of this Master Degree consists of one year of year of management, policy analysis and entrepreneurship on top of a year of chemistry.

Hamed Farmahini Farahani (Ph.D. Student)

Hamed Farmahini Farahani graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts with a Master's degree in Fire Protection Engineering in 2013. As a Master's student he investigated the methods of oil spill clean-up in cold regions, in particular he studied the application of in-situ burning in the Arctic environment. His Master's thesis topic was on "Burning behavior of ANS crude oil in ice cavities".